Wednesday, February 27, 2008

Pee #2 - PASSION

To paraphrase Clara Peller: Where's the Passion?


If Purpose is attraction potency, then Passion is attraction romance. It is all the heady stuff that comes with young love. It's buying flowers and sending notes. It's thoughtful little gifts left on the car seat and playful little nibbles on the ear. It's inside jokes. It's ironing a blouse when no one asked you to.

What's Passion? It's what happens when the people responsible for an attraction sincerely care about what they are creating. You could say they've fallen in love with it, or you could say they've been drinking the Kool-Aid.

A few important things about Passion:

1. It can happen anywhere. Passion can happen in design. It can happen in operations. It can happen at the top of the organization or it can be a grass-roots thing that emerges at the most junior positions.

2. Passion can work miracles. It can make meager budgets seem big. It can make impossible timelines work.

When you consider what the WED folks were able to accomplish in the 1950's and 1960's, well, let's just say its insane by today's standards. Timelines were incredibly compressed. Staff was small, especially the core team. But incredible things were done because people cared. Consider It's a Small World and the work involved. Not just design but translating that to set fabricators, general contractors, robot-builders, lighting guys. Add in things like songwriting and audio production for this whole mess. And a new ride system.





Forget the tired "jokes" about the song, you'd be proud to have created a legacy attraction like It's a Small World.



It's a Small World was built in a year, from concept to opening. This accomplishment is a testament to the prowess of the Disney organization. But the real take-away is the result: It's a Small World remains one of the most pure, most resonant theme park attractions ever. The people who created it had passion.

3. Passion is contagious. It can spread within an organization. This happens when an individual or a group brings an energy to a new project. It can also happen when someone in operations demonstrates that they care and shows their colleagues the results of this kind of attention.

Passion can also "infect" the audience. One of the best examples of this is happening now at Holiday World in Santa Claus, IN. This tiny little park has created a buzz for itself by adding great attractions, maintaining a clean-as-a-whistle operation, and making the place a value for consumers. It is clear that the Koch family and the folks they employ really have a passion for what they do. And in the past eight years or so, the audience has caught on. I first heard about Holiday World through word-of-mouth, from someone who went and just fell in love--not from some marketing machine.

You can be scared of Santa and still get free Pepsi at Holiday World!


4. Passion forgives a lot of mistakes. When an attraction is lavished with attention and caring, folks give the little gaps and edges a pass.

One of the clunkiest attractions I ever visited was the original Center of Science & Industry--COSI--in Columbus, Ohio. It was this weird thing that had crammed its way into an abandoned county building. It opened in the mid sixties and over the next four decades collected the most random exhibits, from see-thru German women to walk-thru exhibits from the 1964 World's Fair to a freakish band of half-scaled Presidents of the United States to a display of every Cracker Jack toy EVER MADE. Oh yeah, they had a troupe of rats who played basketball also.



COSI: This is the future, at least as it looked in Ohio in the 1970's

It was cluttered and disjointed. Show quality was all over the map. Wayfinding was a mess and the adolescent kids in the audience always smelled like they needed deodorant. But you knew the people who were running this place cared. There were shows all the time. There was always something new (not always fresh) being added. The place was a great success in its original, pre-1999 form.

5. Passion matters to guests. This is the key thing to remember. Guests can smell passion and, as importantly, they know when planners, designers, and operators are just phoning it in. The gawd-awful reaction to Disney's California Adventure is in part because the people visiting can tell that this is not the loved-on Disney they expect but an off-the-shelf amusement park laid out by mall developers. I never visited the failed Wild West World in Kansas but its no surprise that place tanked. Just looking at the images the place screamed "County fair rides at theme park prices."

So, if Passion is so darn important, why don't the people that are investing millions of dollars on attractions "get it" and insist on it, just like they insist on ADA compliance and toilet seats? My answer: you can't insist on Passion. You only get that from certain folks and, even then, only when they can really feel it for the job they're working.

Today, you go to Orlando, or Southern California, and you'll find that demand for service employees is pulling resources like taffy. The volume of new attractions being developed internationally is doing the same thing with designers and engineers. Passion--where it exists--is being stretched thin. Toss in the fact that some things are really just hard to care about (you can only design so many attractions about XYZ characters, you can only bang the corporate gong so often before you go into a mild coma) and it is no wonder that so many projects are delivered stillborn.

Passion has never been easy. It's sometimes cheap. But if you can find it, you should sure as hell do whatever you can to keep from losing it.



Tuesday, February 26, 2008

Pee #1 - PURPOSE (aka Attraction Viagra)

So, getting into the Three Pee's of Great Attractions, we'll start with what may be the most obvious Pee: Purpose.

It seems natural that all attractions have a purpose of some kind. On a cynical level, the purpose of many attractions is to separate guests from their money.

But that's not what we're talking about when we say "purpose." We are asking whether an attraction has a reason for being. Is that reason something that audiences sense? Does it really matter to folks that this place exists?

When attractions have Purpose, it's an energy, a form of potency. It's Attraction Viagara. These places are going somewhere.

Places like the British Museum have this kind of Purpose. At the British Museum, people experience Great Works. The art here spans thousands of years and encompasses sexy things like Egyptian statuary and enormous pieces of Greek architecture. And it is all RIGHT THERE. You're not supposed to touch the stuff (some do) but you can examine things down to the pock mark. It can be seen from all sides. It can be smelled. It is a heady and a huge experience.


Artifacts like this Moai are presented at the British Museum, giving locals a reason to stay out of pubs.


Disneyland certainly had Purpose when it opened. Walt Disney conceived this park in the midst of America's great suburbanization. This was a place where families could have fun together. Disneyland embodied the aspirations of middle America circa 1955. Visiting the park became a sort of pilgrimage.

(Walt's original vision behind Disneyland is less central to the park today and its purpose is less focused. Corporate Disney wants to suggest that this is a wholesome fun park that is uniquely able to dispense "magic." For many folks, the park has taken on a more vague, nostalgia-influenced role. We will talk about this more when we get to Pee #3-PLACE).





Disneyland's purpose came from Walt Disney's convictions in what a theme park could be. For the first four years, there were no thrill rides due to concerns that many adults wouldn't be interested.


Why is Purpose important? Well, look at some of the places that lack a sense of purpose.


When Planet Hollywood debuted in New York in 1991 and began to deliberately open locations in destinations like Beverly Hills, this was a brand that felt like it had purpose. "Real" movie artifacts were on display and real movie stars visited and owned the joints. It felt like each of these places were special, each one existed as a unique Hollywood oasis created so that regular folks could step into that exclusive world. Joe Sixpack from Columbus, Ohio would brag to his pals that he'd visited the Planet Hollywood in Miami (and also buy a t-shirt).

But expanding into places like Columbus, Ohio is not the way to remain special. As Planet Hollywood grew, oversaturation eroded what guests percieved as its Purpose. Today, Planet Hollywood has gone through two bankruptcies and is just a big Johnny Rockets with rubber Schwarzenegger props.



Planet Hollywood Casino: Why does the world need one of these?

The same thing happened with the entire Six Flag's Worlds of Adventure fiasco. For years, two fine parks--Sea World and Geauga Lake--existed on the same little lake in Northeast Ohio. Sea World, in fact, was a huge success, much better received than its cousin that opened in Orlando a year later.

Sea World works because there is a palpable sense of Purpose behind the place. That was obliterated when Six Flags bought that marine park and subsumed its brand. No more was there a modest little amusment park across the lake from a special little sea life park. Now, there was this behemoth that sounded like it belonged in Orlando and could never really explain what kind of animal it wanted to be. Six Flags couldn't make sense of it. Neither could Cedar Fair. Come this summer, it will all be reduced down to just another water park.

Anyone else remember when the Justice League was at Sea World Ohio?

Purpose matters. It's how guests understand what an attraction "does." When there is no apparent Purpose, the attraction just goes limp in the public's mind. Purpose is attraction Viagra.

Monday, February 25, 2008

The Three Pee's of Great Attractions - Pt. 1 of 4



Who's to say what makes a Great Attraction? Well, this is the Internet, so anyone can say anything they want...

So, with that we offer The Three Pee's of Great Attractions.

But first, let us clarify what we mean by "attraction." Does this cover themed attractions, like parks? Why yes it does! But it also includes any place that is both a diversion and a physical place. Attractions are places you go to that provide experiences that are different to regular life. With that in mind, attractions can be museums, zoos, hotels, restaurants. For some people, the airport may be an attraction. For others, it's a truck stop (I know a great TA on I-75 south of Cincinnati).



Mount Rushmore is an attraction!


With that in mind...The Three Pees of Great Attractions:

  1. PURPOSE
  2. PASSION
  3. PLACE

Now...what do we mean by each of these Pees? Check back later to find out!



Congratulations!

No one can say you didn't deserve it. The Pixar gang really did a bang up job with this film.

Sunday, February 24, 2008

What Are the Chances?


What are the chances that Surf's Up will walk away with the little gold man tonight? It was far from a perfect movie, but for that matter Ratatouille was far from perfect. I think it would be nice to see this--the best of the penguin movies--receive some cred.

Saturday, February 23, 2008

My Backstory is Bigger than your Backstory

For any Disnoid who hasn't picked up The Disney Mountains by Jason Surrell, you owe it to yourself to do so. The binding is flimsy, but the content is decent.


Buy me new on Amazon for $14!

Once you read this thing, I'd like to hear your take on Joe Rohde and his ongoing prattle about every last bit of who-gives-a-crap that went into Expedition EVEREST. Don't get me wrong, I have a tremendous amount of respect for anyone who gets way beyond the nitty-gritty to create an attraction with heart. But if you are doing this in the name of STORY, well, how about first you make sure you have a story that makes sense.

What do I mean? Well, I am not talking about the obvious misdirection involved with the Everest angle...it makes no sense but, well--yeah it really doesn't make sense, does it?

No, I am talking about this bit of nonsensicalness:

  1. You climb up this mountain on a train. The train is on tracks.

  2. Suddenly, you discover the road ahead is blocked: the tracks are ripped up (presumably by a monkey-man)

  3. Somehow you, in the train, go flying backward. As you are on a route you didn't come up on and there is no indication in the story that there is a switch, it appears that our storytellers are suggesting that the train is now off the tracks.

  4. You, in the train, then see the shadow of the monkey-man. He is RIPPING UP TRACKS and now, somehow, you are back on the rails.

I know this sounds like quibbling, and it is. But it makes no sense.

It is also basic. This kind of flimsiness is apparent to more guests than the authenticity of some natural mineral-stain that could only be found in Tibet. If Disney can afford to spend millions on research trips/corporate vacations, why can't they spend a couple extra grand concocting a story that holds water?

Friday, February 22, 2008

Disneyland's New Hotel

Bring back the sign!


There's a great discussion over on the laughingplace boards regarding a proposed hotel at the east entry to the Disneyland Resort.

While there are many logistical issues (most of which are easily solved by looking at what was done in Paris and Tokyo) I'm most intrigued by the potential theme of such a property. Many make the case for a Victorian themed affair. Me? I think Disneyland should tip its Mouse Ears to the Harbor Boulevard of old and build a Googie-inspired space age hotel.


Perhaps inspired by a local landmark?

Something clean, white, optimistic, and fantastical. Something that celebrates a purely-Southern Californian vernacular. Something that makes amends for mucking up the once-beautiful Tomorrowland '67.

Bring back the old Disneyland sign at that entrance, provide a backdoor into Tomorrowland for these hotel guests. Houston: I think we've got a winner.

Thursday, February 21, 2008

Disney's Night Kingdom: How Does THAT Math Work?

So, I started this by weighing Jim Hill's article on Disney's Night Kingdom against the disappointment I heard on many fronts that this was not going to be something like a 4 hour dark ride. We'll go into that later.

The thing that struck me along the way is that something in Jim Hill's math doesn't hold up, or Disney is doing something very uncommon for them. Let me explain.

There are really just two primary factors in assessing how much money your gated attraction will earn annually: attendance and per cap spending (what the average guest spends). Once you know that, you can come up with a picture of what you'll earn in a year (just multiply the two). That's your revenue.

And, from that, you can figure out how much you can spend on the initial capital investment in the park. To simplify, you subtract all your operating costs--labor, insurance, licensing, etc--what you are left with is your EBITDA--earnings before interest taxes depreciation and amortization. We'll just call it profit, though its not exactly the same.

A good profit is 20% of earnings. How many years will you spend your profits paying back your initial investment? Back in the early 1990's Eisner and Wells used to tout their 5 year payback model.


What does it cost to feed a couple of these things every year? Image (c) Disney.


We'll stop there and do some quick math. Let's say this new park is a $300 gate price, plus Disney wrestles another $20 bucks out of each guest. Per cap spending is $320. And let's use Jim's 2000 person capacity number and--because this is Disney--we'll assume that every day of the year, the park is filled to the gills. 2000 x 365 = 730,000 guests per year x $320 = $233,600,000. Holy mackerel but that is a lot of money!

But, if Disney's making a 20% profit, that is only $46.7 million annually.

I say only, because one of Hill's big points is that Disney is going to be spending north of $500m on this park. At 20% profit, it would take Disney more than a decade to pay that back. Figure in normal interest rates and that payback window is much longer.

Now, if Disney were able to make a 35% profit--not unheard of in attractions, but a sign of HUGE success--profits are $81.7 million. Much better but still requiring more than 6 years to pay back the principal Jim Hill is referencing.

Throw in Hill's claims that the first two years the park won't even be running at full capacity...who knows?

But my take is that Disney is betting on a park that HAS to do PHENOMENAL numbers from opening--50% or 60% profits--or it will quickly show itself to be an albatross around the company's neck. That, or Jim Hill's information is off.

Sunday, February 17, 2008

How Does This Make Any Sense???



If you think this makes no sense, try piecing together Jim Hill's most recent story.


Ask me six or seven years ago and I would've told you that Jim Hill was my favorite Disnoid-writer in the whole wide Interweb. For reasons we won't bother with here, that changed, but I've always believed Jim was one of the gang--a Disney geek with enough of a head on his shoulders to be skeptical when required. If anything, I thought the guy was getting to be a little too rough on the Mouse following the Pixar purchase a couple of years back.

But then, what the heck is this story Jim "broke" on Friday?

Jim's purportedly got the inside scoop on WDW's 5th gate, whimsically referred to as Disney's Night Kingdom or DNK . And maybe he does--I'm not suggesting he's making things up. But look at what he's describing. First off, the title suggests that the Mouse is set "to reimagine the Disney-theme-park-going experience." And maybe the key word to appreciate in that phrase is the "Disney" modifier, because Jim then goes on to explain that this park is really just aping Sea World's Discovery Cove.

Read the specific experiences Hill is listing: rock climbing, spelunking, frolicing with penguins, zip lining over crocodiles, and--OH YEAH--eating gourmet meals and watching state-of-the-art stage shows. Huh? Jim's article just gives that randomness a pass.

But I think this is my favorite part of the whole story:

"I know, I know. A lot of you may have trouble wrapping your heads around a Disney theme park that's as distinctly different as DNK is going to be."

Yes, I am sure it is all the reader's fault, not being able to make sense out of this Frankensteined mess that's been described. Just as it was guests' fault for not appreciating the masterpiece that was Disney's California Adventure on opening day. At least the marketing department will be there to show us the way!

(deleted)

Who knows, if Disney decides to cook up this stew, they may just pull it off. But this is the same company that:

  1. took nearly a decade to convince guests that a $750 million zoo was worth a visit.
  2. is throwing in the towel and an extra billion dollars to pull DCA out of the ashes.
  3. routinely scares guests with its Year of a Million Dreams-scheme.
  4. marketed the Disney Institute big-time and then quietly euthanized it due to lack of interest.


Jim thinks the big question is whether his readers will shell out $250-$300 to visit this thing he's outlined. Yeah...THAT'S the big question alright.

For my part, I wonder what the heart of the place is, what's the big idea? Swimming with dolphins I get--it's what every kid who goes to Sea World dreams of...doing that in an island setting has a romance to it. But what is this "Night Kingdom?" It sounds like a downtown version of Medieval Times.

If Jim wants to ask his audience questions, how about asking what everyone thinks about Disney swiping a successful operating model from another park down the street?

Or, if Jim is really interested in how this park and your billfold might interact, how about finding out whether guests would prefer to spend their $300 bucks on "Night Kingdom" or Discovery Cove?

I firmly believe that mixing up the theme park model is necessary and that Discovery Cove is an indicator of what bold moves and great ideas--when paired together--can yield. There are so many more opportunities out there...especially when capacity can get dialed down. I sincerely hope Disney has that great new attraction in their grasp. If they do, Jim Hill's story did nothing to promote it.

Wednesday, February 13, 2008

No Bull

Well now, what does Lance have over on his screamscape site? A cow? At Hard Rock Park? I wonder how they moooved that in.

This link will steer you to the image.

I can't decide if it's cheesey or well done.

Tuesday, February 12, 2008

Words of wisdom from Jay Rasulo

This just in from Jay Rasulo, Chairman of Walt Disney Parks & Resorts (courtesy The New York Times)

Photo (c) Disney

“Guests are pretty much no longer interested in being passive viewers,” Mr. Rasulo said.

First, a word of caution: Whoa, Jay-bird...that there's a pretty strongly worded phase! It has all the spine of overcooked linguini.

Second of all: WRONG! Many of your guests want nothing more than to be "passive viewers." Note to Jay: try visiting Pirates of the Caribbean at about 1pm on New Year's Eve. On my visit this year, the line was more than an hour long. BTW - when you're on that ride, all you do is sit on your butt.

Finally: If you really believe them words, how can you justify sinking millions and millions of dollars into a Nemo submarine ride (where you do nothing but sit on your butt and look out the window)? Or a Nemo show at DAK (where you do nothing but sit on your butt and watch some dancers get their exercise with a bunch of fish puppets)? Or ANOTHER Nemo ride at Epcot (where you sit on your butt in a fiberglass clam and watch a bunch of fish out a window)?

Someone please explain what J-Ro means by all this?

Livin' in the Trees


Some things can make you feel old.

Take for instance the story that popped up on mouseplanet yesterday about the Treehouse Villas being reborn (you can visit the story here)



Old timey Treehouse




New-fangled above-the-flood-plane Treehouse



When I was a kid, we spent three or four vacations back in the Treehouses. They were completely secluded back in this woods that Disney had carved out. There was a real sense of being away from everything.

At the time, I had mixed feelings about them, because they were so far off the beaten path. It was a real production getting anywhere. With one exception: Disney Village.

Back in the 80' and early 90's you could rent an electric golf cart if you stayed in any of the villas and drive--across golf course paths, public roads, and sidewalks--all the way up to Disney Village. And it wasn't like there was just a little parking pad when you first got there. We would drive all the way around to the Empress Lilly and park right in front. There were even little quad boxes where you could plug in your ride while you went shopping, dining, etc.


Back when there was a paddlewheel...



There was a such a feeling of freedom associated with the carts and the Treehouses, the whole Disney Village Resort area.

By contrast, things now are so heavily programmed between the village, Saratoga Springs and the whole DVC machine. Disney characters are everywhere. So are chain restaurants and traffic snarls. The Treehouses may be coming back but it is in name only. Disney can't buck their own trends.

Monday, February 11, 2008

Sunday, February 10, 2008

Wall-E



I really cannot wait for this. There's something so warm and simple in what's popped up so far on WALL-E.

In my dreams it's like Dumbo and Bambi had a baby, only instead of the result being some freakish big-eared deer with skin problems, limited speaking ability, and the powers of flight, its all those quiet moments from both films that maximize action in lieu of spoken words, strung together on a simple Dumbo-esque story thread.

Being that Pixar is involved, this thing has a 87.5% chance of being better than I expect (hey, I guess they had to make a film like Cars at some point).

Much better video can be found at the Disney.com site. Try this: http://disney.go.com/disneypictures/wall-e/

What Mickey Can't Do


The Huff-N-Puff from Sellner Manufacturing.
Learn more about them here: http://www.whirlin.com/kiddie_rides.html


Growing up as a kid, I believed there was nothing that Disney couldn't do. While there's still a soft spot in me that wants to believe that, time and experience have taught that the size and slickness you find at Disney, Universal, Busch, and the other big guns comes at a price. Take capacity for instance.

If you are a big park and you are expecting 15, 20, or 45 thousand people in your gate at any given moment, capacity is right up there with Jesus, Mary, and ammunition. Everyone who has been to a park and given the operation of the joint five minutes thought knows that. It's why the parks spring for big-budget rides like Pirates of the Caribbean. They can eat up the people. Get 'em in, get 'em through, get 'em out. The air conditioning doesn't hurt.

Most people avoid Dumbo, even Peter Pan's Flight, when the parks are crushed because the time invested isn't worth what you get from it.

In the name of efficiency, Disney has set a minimum threshold of acceptability. But consider what they deny themselves, and their guests. Quiet experiences. Self-guided experiences. Experiences with more than one front door. Experiences that offer more than a single, inherently obvious flow. Experiences that encourage high dwell time, repeatability, or non-traditional usage. Experiences that don't squash spontanaeity.

(Busch has knocked on this door a little with Discovery Cove, but for those who have visited the headline attraction--swimming with the dolphins--is a very regimented affair. Plus the dolphins will only let you get to second base.)

This is a theme we plan to explore here. If you have any thoughts, we'd love to hear them.

And, hey, don't those Huff-N-Puffs look fun?

Saturday, February 9, 2008

You're Going to (Disney's) Hollywood (Studios)











Artwork (c) Disney

Disney announced a new American Idol attraction that will set up shop in the old Superstar Television building at Disney's Hollywood Studios.

While WDW management should be commended for a) doing something with this abandoned structure and b) using a television property rather than creating another shopfront stuffed with princesses and c) avoiding the temptation to go cheap and incestuous with their own tween-centric High School Musical/Cheetah Girls/Hannah Montana programming, I still have to wonder how well this all-but washed up Fox show will play in just a few years. American Idol is showing its age. The viewing audience for its opening episode this season was its lowest in four years. As malaise sets in and the wind goes out of American Idol's sails, the park will be left with another empty Who Wants to be a Millionaire building.

Still, I'm curious to visit this attraction and to find out how Disney deals with one of the show's most iconic elements: Simon Cowell's signature insults. Many viewers tune in to American Idol just to watch as unfortunates are singled out by Cowell and subsequently ridiculed during each season's initial episodes. Will Disney subject their guests to random acts of mean-spiritedness? If they avoid this aspect of the show, will they be neutering it for guests who are coming just to hear wry British putdowns?

And one last thing...what is with this concept art? The people are rendered about 3x as large as they would appear against the existing structure. As part of this renovation, are they shrinking the building? Are they only inviting the sad victims of bovine growth hormone overdoses? Either way, the whole thing just comes across as something more rinky-dink than I imagine Disney had hoped.

And one last-last thing, again on the concept art. For those who pine for the original Disney-MGM Studios with its Hollywood-That-Never-Was aesthetic, well, let's just kiss that old idea goodbye. If this attraction is realized as rendered, we'll have a sleek contemporary structure and an overscaled, visually hyperactive LED board screaming at the end of Hollywood Boulevard. If the hat wasn't enough, this attraction may well be the cut that kills the old Bob Weis-era Studios.

Oh well, here's hoping they have a Clay Aiken rubberhead wandering the park.

What You'll Get: scene from the Space Mountain queue

Thursday, February 7, 2008

How NOT to Make Friends on Space Mountain

What You'll Need:

a buddy
a digital camera
a tolerance for being hated

What You'll Do:

  1. Visit the Magic Kingdom on an evening when the park is open until midnight or later. Christmas time is always a good bet.
  2. Make Space Mountain your last ride of the day by getting in line right before the park closes. You'll find another couple thousand people have the same idea.
  3. Wait patiently with this weary, irritable throng. Try not to draw anymore attention to yourself than necessary.
  4. Stand in front of your buddy in line.
  5. Quietly draw your camera. Turn around as if you are going to grab your buddy's picture.
  6. Accidentally aim the camera at the crowd BEHIND your buddy.
  7. Press the button and make the camera go FLASH!

Standby for Saturday's post to see What You'll Get

Beached Mermaids



Dateline Disneyland: 1965-1967. Young "maidens" were recruited to perform as mermaids in Disneyland's Submarine Lagoon.

Today, this kind of display would generate an intense range of emotions, from fundamentalist furor to guys folding up singles longways and standing at the railing with a bleary-eyed smile.

Can't say things were all that different forty years ago. One story has it that the mermaids were flushed down the drain after one-too-many male guests could not resist the sirens' song and lept into the lagoon. (The less-idyllic account suggests that the intense amount of chlorine used in the water dried out these poor fish-girls. Ewwww.)

Still, standing here in 2008, there's something very innocent and playful about the whole affair. And sexy, too.

Walt, you were a genius!

Wednesday, February 6, 2008

Panda: Beware the Ides of March

During one of my many, brief midlife crises (this one had something to do with turning 30) I decided that I should make a visit to Tokyo. Alone. There were plenty of events at work that conspired to make this happen. I was newly-single, I had been in heat to see the Tokyo Disney Resort, and the recent terrorist unpleasantness had driven travel prices down to bargain-basement levels. With this much going in my favor, how could I say no?

Of course, I don't speak, or read, or really even get Japanese. I like sushi, love it when everyone is shorter than me, and can tolerate Hello Kitty. So that worked. Plus, there's this perverted delight I get when I'm wandering around lost in a place that is just dripping with new things to see and hear. And smell, sometimes taste. Never touch. Never.

There are many stories from that visit and a subsequent trip with my old buddy Neil. But from all of that, this is my favorite picture. It was right above the turnstiles at Ueno Park Zoo in Tokyo:




Clearly, even to an idiot American like me, it was pretty obvious that there was not going to be any Panda inside. Though, at first I thought maybe just the Panda's body was gone and that his head was on display, frozen in this freakish look of surprise.

I was struck most by the English copy...there's a delicious sense that you are reading this sign at the intersection of No-Time, like you're hanging out with the Ghost of Christmas Yet-To-Be. Has the Panda been absent since March, or is that when he's returning? Or, perhaps, this is a warning, a veiled threat that March will be the time when something bad will happen to the Panda if you don't behave, if you don't pass the school levy or donate to the March of Dimes or something. What if this was some kind of message from the CIA or Osama bin Laden, or the mob? Does the Panda sleep with the fishes?

Whatever its true meaning, the sign was worth a chuckle. I was a stranger in a strange land walking into a strange zoo, snickering in a strange language.

Language differences aside, there is no mistaking the international language of yellow and black safety tape. The idiot I am, I clicked my way through the turnstile and ended up bashing my head on this sign.

I wonder if the Japanese translation is something like "Stupid American Head Knocker"

Tuesday, February 5, 2008

Knockin' on Heaven's Door




Yes, I'm that dad who drags his kids out of bed at the crack of chicken just to wait for Disneyland to open its gates. Sweet anticipation!

Manager's Meeting @ 9:30



Snausage Party